Free tool · sources checked Oct 23, 2026 · runs in your browser
Steam revenue calculator.
Find out what a Steam game really puts in the developer's bank account: gross sales, minus refunds, minus VAT, minus Valve's cut, with the cut worked out on Valve's real 30% / 25% / 20% tiers. Only know the review count? You get an honest range of copies sold, not one made-up number.
Try a famous game
US price and all-language review count, read from Steam on Oct 23, 2026. Estimates, not real sales.
Your game
What do you know?
Refunds default to GameDiscoverCo's 9.5% median. VAT: EU and UK prices include it; if 30% of buyers pay a price with 20% VAT inside, about 5% of your gross is tax. "Revenue before" = net Steam revenue this game already earned since Oct 1, 2018 (it moves you up Valve's tiers).
Defaults: GameDiscoverCo's 2020-launch median (38) and its 20 to 60 range for recent games. Older games ran higher (pre-2017 median: 74).
| Estimate | Copies | Gross | Developer keeps |
|---|
How it works
- Gross = copies × price × (1 − average discount). Steam's own "gross" in the sales portal is before refunds and taxes, the same as here.
- Refunds and tax come off first. Steamworks says the monthly report deducts refunds, chargebacks and taxes and "reflects the actual amount you will be paid" (Steamworks docs).
- Valve's cut uses the 2018 tiers. 30% on the first $10M of a game's net revenue, 25% on the part between $10M and $50M, 20% on everything beyond $50M, counting revenue from Oct 1, 2018. Valve's words: "the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75%/25% on earnings beyond $10M" (Steamworks announcement, Nov 30, 2018). DLC and in-game sales count toward the same game.
- What's not in it: regional pricing (many countries pay less than the US price, so use the discount box to lower your average), publisher splits, and income tax.
The reviews-to-sales range, and why we don't give one number
Valve does not publish sales. The standard workaround is the "Boxleiter method": copies sold ≈ reviews × a ratio. The ratio is real but it moves a lot:
- 2015: Jake Birkett, looking at the top 50 Steam games of 2014, suggested 30 to 100 sales per review with 70 as a mid value, and credits the idea to Mike Boxleiter (Grey Alien Games, Mar 12, 2015).
- 2020: Simon Carless collected real numbers from 237 games for GameDiscoverCo: median 58, middle 80% between 25 and 100. Games launched in 2020 had a median of 38, with a non-outlier range of 20 to 60; games launched before 2017 had a median of 74 (GameDiscoverCo, Aug 3, 2020).
So a game with 1,000 reviews could have sold 20,000 copies or 60,000, and that is a 3× difference in revenue. Our defaults are the 2020 numbers, the most recent primary data we could check. Change them if you trust a different study.
Sanity check with a real number: Stardew Valley has 1,047,307 Steam reviews (all languages, Oct 23, 2026). At 20 to 60 per review that is 21 to 63 million copies. Its official press page says over 26 million copies on PC as of December 2024. The real number sits near the low end, which is what you'd expect from an older, hugely loved game whose players review a lot. One data point, not a rule.
Sources
- Valve: New Revenue Share Tiers (Steam Distribution Agreement), Nov 30, 2018, read Oct 23, 2026
- Steamworks: Payments and sales reporting, read Oct 23, 2026
- GameDiscoverCo: Steam refunds, how many should you expect?, Feb 4, 2025
- Jake Birkett: How to estimate how many sales a Steam game has made, Mar 12, 2015
- GameDiscoverCo: How that game sold on Steam, using the NB number, Aug 3, 2020
- Preset prices: Steam store API (US); review counts: each game's Steam store page, positive + negative reviews in all languages, read Oct 23, 2026
- PocketGamer.biz: Balatro exceeds 5 million in sales on all platforms, Jan 20, 2025 · Stardew Valley press page, read Oct 23, 2026
FAQ
How much does Steam take from game sales?
30% of a game's net Steam revenue up to $10 million, 25% on revenue between $10 million and $50 million, and 20% on revenue beyond $50 million. The lower rates only apply to the part above each line, and count revenue from Oct 1, 2018 onward. Revenue includes the game, DLC, in-game sales and Community Market fees (Valve, Nov 30, 2018).
Does Steam take its cut before or after refunds and VAT?
After. Steamworks says the sales portal's revenue figure does not include deductions (refunds, chargebacks, taxes), and the monthly report includes them and shows what you will actually be paid (Steamworks docs, read Oct 23, 2026). This calculator removes refunds and tax first, then applies the tiers.
How do you estimate Steam sales from reviews?
Multiply the review count by a "sales per review" number. That idea, credited to Mike Boxleiter, has been measured a few times: Jake Birkett suggested 30 to 100 (2015); GameDiscoverCo found a median of 58 across 237 games and 38 for games launched in 2020, with most recent games between 20 and 60 (Aug 3, 2020). One game can sit far outside any of these, so the calculator shows a range.
How many refunds should I expect on Steam?
GameDiscoverCo surveyed almost 150 developers: median lifetime refunds were 9.5% of units, 8% for regular releases and 12.4% for Early Access (Feb 4, 2025). Your own rate is in Steamworks.
When does Steam pay developers?
About 30 days after the month of the sale, usually at the end of the next month, once you are over the $100 minimum (Steamworks docs).
Want to see a real launch's numbers?
We launched O'BLOCK on Steam on Oct 20, 2026. It's a free sneaker-flipping haggling game: you start with $300 and a shoebox and end up selling to billionaires, and the buyers lie. Free, so it costs you nothing to see what a launch looks like from the player side.
Play O'BLOCK free on Steam →Who made this
Matt Busel, a one-person studio that ships its own Steam game and iPhone apps and publishes the real numbers. No sign-up; nothing you type leaves this page.